YES, Nurses Are Salespeople! How Nurses Can Sell their Way Into a Job or School

Spine_CRNA, BSN, RN

~"Sleazy car salesman."

~"You can't trust them. They're like used car salesmen: so pushy. And they lie to you, too!

~"Snake oil salesman."

~"It's just so uncomfortable negotiating my salary. I just took whatever they gave me."

~"Well, I didn't want to brag."

~"I'm a nurse; not a businessman!"

~"All those guys in the business suits call the shots. They don't listen to the nurses. Let's see THEM take care of the patients!"

YES, nurses are salespeople! That means we're persuaders and influencers. It's inherent to the job, actually. Some may just not notice it. But acknowledging this is empowering!

Sales is a noble profession. It gets great products and services we believe in into the hands of people who can benefit from them. A good salesperson listens to their customer and demographic. (That's "Assessment"-the first step of the nursing process.) They help you find and solve the problem (Diagnose, Plan, Implement: steps two-four) of not being able to afford or obtain what will benefit you. They break through limiting beliefs like, "Sales is sleazy." (It can be. But in the right hands it's persuasion. For example, nurses persuade patients to get out of bed after cardiothoracic surgery even though it hurts because it helps their lungs recover from the procedure better and gets them home sooner. We tell them, "Don't worry. Before we get you out of bed we'll give you pain medicine.")

This opinion is bred from personal experience. As a nurse who buys from garage sales and resells on Amazon, hires and fires writers for his book publishing business, thanks customers for five star reviews, and rectifies my occasional one-star reviews, I have learned and grown with sales/persuasion skills. I carry this over to the hospital when I (a nurse with five years' experience) listen to a new physician who's only been in practice for three months explain her rationale for a treatment I don't believe in. I ease her concerns about the pros and cons of various interventions, and I propose a better solution that's as close to a win-win (for us and the patient) as possible.

I used sales and persuasion to get accepted into Nursing Anesthesia school because I'm not shy about promoting a "product" I believe in that I also believe can help the school. This product is myself, my skills, my aspirations, my experiences. I put their minds at ease knowing they're accepting a dedicated student who won't fail and make their attrition rate for this year's class rise.

I believe this so much that I encourage other nursing professionals and aspiring Nurse Anesthetists to learn sales to benefit their lives. I sell them on the idea of sales. This happens informally as we sip coffee in between seeing patients and more formally on social media platforms like Instagram as a healthcare influencer.

And I'm encouraged by my peers who share stories of prompting change on their nursing units. The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses' November 2018 edition extols the benefit of being poised when the author states it was implementing charisma into her educational proposals to her coworkers that made her effectual in persuading them to buy new equipment she knew would help their patients. She had the research, the formal education, and the evidence base to make a strong logical argument, but she lacked the salesmanship to recruit the emotional side of her audience. So she sought advice on how to do this. After implementing new persuasive techniques, she achieved her goal and the unit and its patients are better off!

Sales has a place in nursing because it is essential to communication in all humans. Nurses work with people and people need encouragement from fellow people who have their best interests at heart. Better your nursing career by incorporating sales!

YES, Nurses Are Salespeople! How Nurses Can Sell their Way Into a Job or School

About Spine_CRNA, BSN, RN

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